Dusty you assume only everyone wants fat burning. I think this is silly. The brain and heart will prefer ketones over carbohydrates when both are present in the blood stream. Look at the research and mechanism. I don’t want fat loss, I want better brain function. I also regularly eat carbs myself. This is one of the reasons I myself use exogenous ketones. No this isn’t a magic fat loss powder, but don’t sit here and quote T-nation trying to rebuttal this article acting like that is a credible source.

Some think so because higher ketone levels imply increased fuel for the brain and heart (that prefer ketones), and increased protection against inflammation and oxidation. But are the health benefits coming from the ketones themselves, or are they coming from the state you have to put your body in to actually produce them? And if you're kicking yourself out of ketosis by ingesting ketones would you still get the same benefits?

Plenty of supplements make you a fractionally better sportsman and these are no different. The synthetic exogenous ketones helped Olympic-caliber cyclists cover an average of 411 additional meters during a 30-minute time-trial, which resulted in a two percent increase in overall speed, found a paper in Cell Metabolism. That can be the difference between feeling the glorious tug of the winner’s ribbon across your chest or rolling in with the stragglers.
The “BHB salt” is simply a compound that consists of sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), and the ketone body β-hydroxybutyrate. In supplements like Pruvit’s Keto OS these individual components are being held together by ionic bonds; however, when you consume the product, it is absorbed into the blood where it dissociates into free Na+, K+, and BHB since it is a water-based solution. Thus, consuming the product directly and immediately puts more ketones into your blood.
Ketone Bodies are then used by tissues as a source of energy3 through a pathway that leads to formation from β-hydroxybutyrate of two molecules of acetyl CoA, which are used finally in the Krebs cycle. It is interesting to note that the KBs are able to produce more energy compared with glucose because of the metabolic effects of ketosis—the high chemical potential of 3-β-hydroxybutyrate leads to an increase in the ΔG0 of ATP hydrolysis.3

KE was synthesized as previously described [29]. BMS is a novel agent (sodium/potassium- βHB mineral salt) supplied as a 50 % solution containing approximately 375 mg/g of pure βHB and 125 mg/g of sodium/potassium. Both KE and BMS were developed and synthesized in collaboration with Savind Inc. Pharmaceutical grade MCT oil (~65 % caprylic triglyceride; 45 % capric triglyceride) was purchased from Now Foods (Bloomingdale, IL). BMS was formulated in a 1:1 ratio with MCT at the University of South Florida (USF), yielding a final mixture of 25 % water, 25 % pure βHB mineral salt and 50 % MCT. BD was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Prod # B84785, Milwaukee, WI).

While the KetoneAid folks have been seeing tremendous success working with elite athletes to improve athletic performance, I thought it would be interesting to quantify the effects of ketone esters on cognitive performance. For the week prior to taking the ketones, I re-established baseline scores in a number of cognitive testing areas using Lumosity*:
A typical serving of racemic ketone salts contains around 12g of beta hydroxybutyrate, of which only half is the D- form (6g). Compared to the 40g ketone esters I consumed (which are 100% D- form), I would need to consume somewhere around seven to nine packets of ketone salts to get the same amount of D-β-hydroxybutyrate (some D- form is wasted burning of the L- form), along with the huge amount of salts contained and more than a gallon of water (since the powders must be mixed). Even if one could consume that amount of ketone salts, they will probably suffer from what people often refer as “disaster pants” (aka diarrhea) due to the amount of salt consumed.

Even though there is mixed evidence regarding the association between calcium supplementation and cardiovascular events, there may be other reasons to avoid high calcium supplementation. In one of his studies, Dr. Bolland claimed that calcium supplements do not prevent hip fractures. Rather, they may lead to kidney stones, acute gastrointestinal events, and increased risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. Thus, the risks involved with high-calcium supplementation potentially outweigh the benefits[21].

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The content of this website is not intended for the treatment or prevention of disease, nor as a substitute for medical treatment or medical advice. Use of recommendations is at the choice and risk of the reader. If you are under medical supervision or taking prescription medications, please consult with your family doctor or medical provider before starting any new eating plan. Ketologie products are not intended to treat, cure or prevent any disease. Pregnant or breast feeding women should consult their health care professional before consuming.
Ketones naturally exist in the body, being created during the process of fat metabolism and are therefore safe to consume even during pregnancy or breastfeeding. Supplements such as Ketologie’s PROBHB are simply providing ketones from an external (exogenous means literally ‘outside of the body’) source. However, if you suffer from any medical conditions and/or are on medications, it is always advisable to consult your health care provider prior to starting any new nutritional or dietary supplement.

We designed a test for each of the chosen benefit claims and enlisted the help of four of our Diet Doctor teammates to try out the supplements and go through the testing. They were Jonatan and Giorgos from the video team, Emőke from the recipe team and Erik from the IT team. We had a mix of people who were naturally in endogenous ketosis during testing, and people who were not.

Your body uses the energy source that is the easiest to use, in our case this is glucose. Glucose is just a type of sugar. As our body cannot store glucose as such it stores the extra glucose in form of glycogen that is stored in our liver and muscles. To initiate production of ketones in your body as fast as possible you must deplete your body of glycogen reserves. The best way to do this is a simple 24 hours fast. This will deplete your glycogen stores as fast as possible. If you don’t over eat for dinner or you even skip it all together you will already wake up in state of mild ketosis the next morning due to the overnight fast. Here are also described some signs that you are in Ketosis already.
However, with the ketone esters, the effects are nearly immediate, and my entire body was humming throughout the entire day, but not in a jittery way. I was full of mental and physical energy that lasted without any sort of crash (it was a gradual taper). During my cognitive tests, things felt almost effortless as I played the various games. After my experiment was complete I continued writing code for several hours, then went to the gym to work out. I did forget to each lunch though, so there must be some suppressive effect on appetite.

Safety Warning — KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDERN. This product is only intended to be consumed by healthy adults 18 years of age or older. Do not use if you are pregnant, trying to become pregnant, breast feeding, have known medical conditions (including but not limited to diabetes, kidney, heart, or liver disease) or are taking prescription or OTC medication(s). Consult with your health care practitioner before using this product These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. —

Patrick Arnold is an organic chemist who is notorious for being the creator of several performance-enhancing steroids. He is arguably one of the strongest influencers on the advancement of sports supplementation. Currently he is focused on developing products under the KetoSports brand, which includes two exogenous ketone products – KetoForce and KetoCaNa.

You may wonder why we are emphasizing on using these specific oils. Well, this is because the extra virgin oil is an unprocessed form, and contains lauric acid that is antimicrobial in nature and is good for brain health. (This is the same lauric acid that is naturally found in breast milk as well.) Its antibacterial property also indirectly supports the growth of Candida that keep your gut healthy.

A small side effect for some people is “ketosis breath”. Many people on a ketogenic diet have experienced this temporary phenomenon, and those taking exogenous ketones can experience it as well. The smell of your breath when you are early in the ketogenic diet can have a hint of acetone to it, and it might be mildly unpleasant, but it’s also harmless. Most gum is pretty low in carbohydrates and is a great option while your keto breath fades.

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Hypoglycemia: why not to be concerned – Taking exogenous ketones can drive blood glucose levels quite low, but you are not likely to feel the typical symptoms of hypoglycemia. This is because when ketone levels are high enough, they dominate as fuel in the brain; hence, you will feel just fine despite having low blood glucose. A highly-cited study by George Cahill, found elevated ketone levels could protect fasted participants when they were administered insulin to induce hypoglycemia.

It's important to listen to your body when going through the ketogenic process. This means that you should only eat when you're hungry and not every single time you get a craving. It's our obsession with food that causes us to stuff ourselves whenever we feel like it, and you should know by now that it's not healthy to do that. When you make it a point to eat only when you're hungry, you're diminishing any food intake that your body doesn't really need.

Elliot received his BS in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and has been a freelance writer specializing in nutritional and health sciences for the past 5 years. He is thoroughly passionate about exercise, nutrition, and dietary supplementation, especially how they play a role in human health, longevity, and performance. In his free time you can most likely find him lifting weights at the gym or out hiking through the mountains of Colorado. He will also host the upcoming BioKeto podcast. You can connect with him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/elliot.reimers) and Instagram (@eazy_ell)Zenwise, you should consider offering this through an email subscriber list to gain **more** loyal (& repeat) customers by offering them better prices. We all know it's cheaper to find ways to keep customers than to go out and find new ones (about 5x cheaper in fact!), plus my guess is Amazon is getting 30% margin AT LEAST). If I saw that you offered a 25% discount when buying directly, I'd keep using the product.
I interviewed Dr. Brianna Stubbs, a ketone researcher with a Ph.D. in Metabolic Physiology from the University of Oxford who is now Research Lead at HVMN, specializing in developing ketone esters. She told me that in terms of science on the ketone salts and their effect on physical performance, one of the most-cited benefits of ketone salts, the scientific studies that have been done show at best no effect on physical performance and that, currently, there is no peer-reviewed scientific research on the ketone salt products on the market.

Let’s take a look at some of the facts and misconceptions about three of the minerals used to make ketone mineral salts: sodium, calcium, and magnesium. Potassium is very hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water very easily. Therefore, it is only feasible that it can be utilized in liquid formulations. Thus, one should be cautious if companies say they have potassium BHB salt powder in their product. I’d be very surprised if that’s actually the case.

Neuroprotective benefits: A natural part of the aging process is neurodegeneration, which is largely responsible for cognitive defects like Alzheimer’s disease. Recent research suggests that exogenous ketone supplementation can drastically slow neurodegeneration and the resulting decrease in mental function.[7] However, the mechanism behind this finding remains to be elucidated; though, researchers suggest exogenous ketones act to reduce brain inflammation. Glucose, on the contrary, may actually accelerate inflammatory response in the brain.[8]
Effects of ketone supplementation on triglycerides and lipoproteins: Ketone supplementation causes little change in triglycerides and lipoproteins over a 4-week study. Graphs show concentrations at 4-weeks of total cholesterol (a), Triglycerides (b), LDL (c), and HDL (d). MCT supplemented rats had signfiicantly reduced concentration of HDL blood levels compared to control (p
This is another point that Brianna Stubbs put me onto: often, ketone-salt companies use terms such as “technology developed by Dominic D’Agostino” as a tool to market their products. Dom D’Agostino holds the patent for the technology being used but is not associated with the products and does not necessarily promote them. In many cases, this feels like a marketing strategy that name-drops a famous keto expert in order to make a product sound more legitimate. There is an example of this on Real Ketones’ website.
SHEER Ketones BHB Salts made this top 5 list because they do a good job of avoiding all the common unwanted additives and fillers in BHB salts. It’s good to see we have options to choose from when trying to avoid these types of ingredients. SHEER Ketones’ other ingredients include citric acid, fruit and vegetable juice powder for the color, and “natural flavors.” It uses a stevia leaf extract (Rebaudioside A).
Is keto safe? Putting yourself through this type of therapy isn't always easy and the process can take some getting used to, in particular during the initial stages when people must go through a period of fasting in order to raise ketone bodies faster. Of course, by doing this, it can put your body through a bit of shock and may cause a person to experience some short-term side effects until their bodies begin to adapt to the lifestyle and any BHB supplement they may be taking.
Exogenous ketones can lower appetite during a fast. After an overnight fast, normal weight human subjects either drank a ketone ester supplement or a calorie-matched glucose drink. Compared to the glucose drinkers, the ketone drinkers had lower insulin, lower ghrelin, greater satiety, and less hunger. This can be useful for people trying to extend their fast who don’t want to or can’t yet deal with the hunger. You’re still taking in energy, but the metabolic profile remains similar to that of a fasted person.
Ketones are naturally slightly acidic, so the combination of BHB with sodium acts as a bit of a buffer to this acidity. Ketones will also naturally act as a diuretic, so you lose salt, potassium calcium and magnesium, and it is generally encouraged to increase sodium intake with ketones. The addition of sodium to the product will replenish this salt loss.
Let’s take a look at some of the facts and misconceptions about three of the minerals used to make ketone mineral salts: sodium, calcium, and magnesium. Potassium is very hygroscopic, meaning that it absorbs water very easily. Therefore, it is only feasible that it can be utilized in liquid formulations. Thus, one should be cautious if companies say they have potassium BHB salt powder in their product. I’d be very surprised if that’s actually the case.
Two ground-breaking studies have recently been published on the effects of intermittent fasting on males. One group of researchers studied the effects that 16 hours of intermittent fasting had on males that lift weights. They found that muscle mass stayed the same, fat mass decreased significantly, and the males who fasted for 16 hours a day burned more fat for fuel compared to the control group that only fasted for 12 hours.
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All of the data I’ll present below were from an experiment I did with the help of Dominic D’Agostino and Pat Jak (who did the indirect calorimetry) in the summer of 2013. (I wrote this up immediately, but I’ve only got around to blogging about it now.) Dom is, far and away, the most knowledgeable person on the topic of exogenous ketones. Others have been at it longer, but none have the vast experiences with all possible modalities (i.e., esters versus salts, BHB versus AcAc) and the concurrent understanding of how nutritional ketosis works. If people call me keto-man (some do, as silly as it sounds), they should call Dom keto-king.

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Medical Disclaimer: The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.